


Here's To Our Story

by amczingphil



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, IT worker phil, M/M, Romantic Fluff, office worker dan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 12:59:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14332959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amczingphil/pseuds/amczingphil
Summary: Dan is a bored office worker with a crush on the cute IT guy - Phil.Naturally Dan decides that the best way to get Phil's attention would be to fabricate a series of technical issues that he has to call Phil to help with. It's just a shame Dan wasn't a little less transparent.





	Here's To Our Story

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to AJ for giving me this prompt and being wonderful enough to beta this fic! check her out @rosaflagephil on tumblr!! 
> 
> this fic is a gift for @bubble-beetle on tumblr for @easterphandomgifts

Dan was bored. 

No, Dan was more than bored, he had surpassed the level of simply being bored and was descending into a level of mind-numbing monotony that he hadn’t known was possible until that day. If someone had asked him when he was younger what he planned to be doing when he had grown up, he imagined that he would have said something along the lines of exploring new planets, being the captain of a huge ship that sailed for months at a time, or maybe even leading an arctic expedition. 

He would not have told them that he wanted to be sitting in an office cubicle staring at a blinking line on the screen as though it was sending him mocking messages in morse code about how little he had written . He would not have thought that the biggest achievement of any given day would be that he only drank four coffees rather than his usual eight, and he would not have thought that he would have a crush on the dark haired guy with glasses who occasionally wandered by but never spoke. 

The guy usually drifted in and out of the office, sometimes pausing behind someone to point at their screen a few times and murmur in a voice too low for Dan to overhear before leaving and returning to his unknown location. 

Dan had been spending weeks trying to figure out who the guy was, but he had come no closer to figuring out the truth. It wasn’t like he could just lean over to the woman in his neighbouring cubicle - Carly - and ask her who the cute guy with the glasses and quiff was. That would most definitely raise questions that he didn’t really want to answer. 

The biggest problem with offices were that they were filled with gossips; there was no one Dan felt comfortable sharing the intricate details of his life with. One time he had told Carly that he was going to a funeral the next week - it was a lie, he just wanted a few days to recover from the hangover he was planning on gaining from the weekend - and people had been offering him their condolences for hours. Eventually he was caught up in a spiralling lie about how his aunt had died during surgery. 

Thankfully, the gossiper next to him finally came through with useful information rather than telling him about the various people that another coworker had slept with during the last month. 

“I hear Phil’s all alone today,” she said with a sniff as she took a sip of her tea and gave him a look that screamed, ‘I’m angry on his behalf because it’s something to be angry about, not something I care about’. 

“Phil?” Dan asked, not even bothering to look away from his blinking cursor to feign interest. 

“The IT guy,” Carly elaborated. “It’s a shame. There’s meant to be four IT specialists on every day to deal with a building this size but Maggie quit last week, Sarah is on holiday, and Jack is off sick. So Phil is all alone today. If I was him I would write a strongly worded email to the top of the chain.”

Part of Dan wanted to snap and say that  _ no one cared what she would do, she was very good at making up hypothetical cases but if she actually had to put them into action then it would have been another matter. _

He contained himself. “I still don’t know who this Phil guy is.”

“The  _ IT guy _ ,” she said again, as though that would suddenly clear everything up. “You know, the guy who looks about thirty, kinda dorky with those glasses - he should really look into getting contacts. He has obviously dyed hair that he pushes off his forehead.”

“Oh,” Dan said, his mouth suddenly feeling dry, “that guy.”

“Yeah,” Carly said as though she hadn’t realised that she suddenly had Dan’s attention, “Such a shame isn’t it? He will have to respond to all the calls himself.”

“Yeah,” Dan murmured, an idea popping into his head as he hooked his foot around the power cord that kept his computer online, “that’s a huge shame,” he pulled. 

The screen went black. 

Well, it looked like he had an IT issue. 

“I hope he’s demanding overtime, he deserves it,” Carly continued. 

“Hey, do you happen to have his number?” Dan asked. “My computer is acting up.”

“Oh it’s somewhere around here, let me find it for you,” she said looking thrilled that she was being asked to help him.

“Thanks.”

When Dan called, he was greeted by a deep Northern voice, and to give the guy credit where it was due, he was extremely friendly and eager to come down and look at Dan’s computer despite the stress that Carly had declared him to be under. 

“Thank you so much,” Dan said as earnestly as possible. “This is the first time anything like this has happened, I don’t know what went wrong.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

True to his word, after barely a minute - Dan was watching the clock - the guy he had been secretly fawning over for months appeared in the room, and he was making his way towards Dan who quickly started looking anywhere but towards the guy. Instead he focused on the desk and looked at where someone had scratched the shape of a leaf into it with what he could only assume was a drawing pin. 

“Dan?” 

“That’s me,” Dan said looking up from the desk. “You must be Phil?”

“That’s me,” Phil parroted back to him with a wide grin. “What seems to be the problem?”

“It’s the weirdest thing,” Dan said with a feigned look of bewilderment. “I was just going about my work and it turned off suddenly and no matter what I do it won’t come back on, look -” he rammed his finger against the power button a few times, “-nothing.”

“Alright, maybe stop abusing the power button first,” Phil said quickly as he moved closer to Dan and knelt down to look at the computer. 

Dan could smell something fruity - his shampoo? It wasn’t what he would have expected but once he smelled it he was surprised that he could have ever imagined anything different. 

“Uh, Dan?” Phil’s voice came filtering up from under the desk, filed with barely contained amusement.

“Yeah?” 

“Usually you have to have a computer plugged in before it will work,” Phil said, as he shuffled about under the desk and plugged something in. 

Dan’s computer whirred to life. He had been hoping that it would have taken Phil longer to realise the problem, but then he  _ was  _ the IT guy so it was no surprise that he would make sure the computer had power before wasting his time. Dan would just need to get more creative.

“That’s odd,” Dan said. “Do you think there’s something wrong with the plug then? You know, if it’s just going to slide out of the socket?”

“It probably just got caught up on your shoes, I wouldn’t worry about it,” Phil said, reappearing from under the desk; his glasses were sitting slightly askew on his nose. Dan had to remind himself that it was odd to fix the glasses for a person who had only known him for a few minutes. 

“Yeah, I guess so,” Dan said. “Thanks for your help. I thought I was going to be stuck without a computer.”

“No worries,” Phil said. “Just call me if there’s anything else I can help with.”

_ Oh, I will,  _ Dan thought to himself but rather than saying that he plastered an appreciative smile on his face. “Hopefully that’s enough electronic drama for one day,” he lied. 

He watched Phil as he walked away, wishing that he had stayed longer, but then he shook himself out from those thoughts and began focusing on what temporary issues he could cause to make Phil need to come back. Maybe if he did something with the internet? Dan wasn't a computer expert but he knew that he used the internet a lot for his work so without it he was definitely struggle. 

He just had to figure out how to disconnect from the internet. If the computer had been connected through WiFi then all he would have had to do was disconnect and forget the network. An ethernet connection was more complicated as if he unplugged it then Phil would be suspicious, unless he blamed Phil for knocking it while he was checking out the computer. 

Would that be rude? 

Most definitely, but there was nothing else he could do, if he wanted Phil to come back then he would need to pull out all the tricks he could. Maybe if he was more tech savvy then he would have been able to screw with his computer better. 

Fortunately for Dan the ethernet cable was easy to spot - it was the only blue one going into the computer - and all he had to do was accidentally drop his pen and while he was picking it up he could yank the cable out. 

“Hello, it’s Phil.”

“Hey, it’s Dan, I called a little while ago because my computer wouldn’t turn on,” Dan stammered into the phone,.“ I don’t know if you remember?”

“You accidentally unplugged your computer,” Phil said. “I remember. It was only a few minutes ago.”

“Yeah, well um-” Dan paused, he needed to make himself as unsure as possible so that Phil wouldn’t become suspicious about what was really wrong with the computer. “For some reason the internet won’t connect. I don’t know what’s happening but I have the computer turned on again and whenever I try to pull up Chrome it’s telling me to connect to the internet.”

“Is your ethernet cable plugged in properly?” Phil asked. 

“My what?” Dan asked feigning ignorance. 

“It should be a blue cable going into the back of the computer, that’s the one that connects you to the internet,” Phil explained.

“I don’t touch the cables,” Dan said trying to make himself sound slightly panicked at the idea. 

“It’s just a blue one, the only blue one, you can’t go wrong.”

“If I try to plug it in the wrong place I’ll screw the whole thing up, I’d rather just stay away from that.” Dan lied. 

“Alright then, I’ll be down in a few minutes.” 

Dan hung up the phone feeling victorious. It wasn’t that big of a success in reality, as Phil had already diagnosed the problem before even getting there, but he would still be able to spend a few brief moments with him while working on the next issue that he would cause. 

“Hey, Dan,” Phil said, his voice appearing suddenly by Dan’s side. Dan had been too caught up in his thoughts to realise that Phil had arrived.  “I’m in a little bit of a rush, would you mind scooting along so I can have a look?” 

Dan looked at Phil and felt a little guilty that he had called him for such an inane reason. His cheeks were flushed and there was a small line between his eyebrows caused by him frowning as though he was stressed. 

“Busy day?” Dan asked. 

“A lot of calls,” Phil confirmed. “Thankfully, though, they’re all simple things to fix. Like plugging your ethernet cable back in.” 

“Yeah, sorry about this,” Dan said. “I really have no idea why this is all happening.”

“Just another one of the great mysteries of life,” Phil said with a slight shrug. 

“Yeah,” Dan murmured, trailing off into silence as he watched Phil work. 

If his eyes lingered on the outline of Phil’s shoulders for longer than socially acceptable, no one would mention it and Dan would never admit to it. 

“There you go,” Phil said. “Surely that should be all the bad luck you have for today.”

“Here’s hoping,” Dan muttered as he avoided eye contact. He was too afraid that Phil would be able to read his next plan on his face. 

“Right, I have to go see Sheila about a document that won’t print,” Phil said as he stood up and brushed lint from the knees of his jeans. “I’ll see you later, Dan.”

“See you,” Dan murmured. Phil had no idea that it would be sooner rather than later when they saw each other again. 

Dan decided to wait a little while before starting on his next plan; he didn’t want to arouse suspicion in Phil. Instead, he chose to use his time wisely and he played a few games of Minesweeper on the computer. He lost all of them.

He just couldn’t wrap his head around the point of the little flags and all the numbers. It was pointless, but it was time consuming and before he knew it ten minutes had passed and he felt that it was time for phase three of his plan. 

Dan lunged for his mouse and set to work with his next plan. The next one would hopefully take Phil a while to figure out because it was a genius idea, if Dan did say so himself. 

He set to work removing the ball from the mouse that was on his desk. It would leave Phil baffled, he would hopefully have no idea what was causing Dan’s problem, as he wouldn’t be expecting Dan to sabotage himself. 

Of course, Dan didn’t have an explanation in mind if Phil managed to discover the issue with the mouse, but he was hoping that he would just cast it off as a random chance that the mouse would break and request a new one for Dan’s computer. 

No one would think to look for the missing ball, would they? 

“Hello, it’s Phil.”

“Phil, hi, it’s Dan again.”

“Oh?” Phil said questioningly. “What seems to be the problem this time around?”

“It’s the-”

“Weirdest thing?” Phil asked cutting him off before he could finish speaking. 

“Yes,” Dan agreed. “It’s my mouse. It just stopped working.”

“Is it plugged in?” Phil asked wryly.

“Yes, for sure, I made sure to check this time before calling,” Dan said as though that meant that the problem wasn’t his fault. 

“Alright, I’ll be down in a minute.”

A minute. That meant that Dan had a minute the hide the little ball that he was gripping in his left hand. Phil would surely notice it, he wasn’t being discreet, but he had no idea where to hide it. 

The panic set in and he took his chances and lobbed the ball across the room. It bounced loudly off the top of someone else’s computer and apparently caused a mess in someone else’s cubicle, if the loud curses and despairing shouts of ‘my coffee’ were anything to go by. 

Not that it mattered overly much to Dan, because the ball was gone just in time as Phil walked into the room. He was running a hand through his hair. That made Dan feel irrationally jealous because he wanted to be the one running his hands through Phil’s hair. It wasn’t fair that he couldn’t do that. 

“Dan,” Phil said with a grin. “How can I help this time?”

“My mouse died,” Dan said with mock sorrow. 

“Well, you were right about one thing,” Phil said as he looked under the desk, “it’s definitely plugged in.”

“Yeah, it’s weird isn’t it?” Dan asked as he shook his head with fake exasperation at his mouse. “I swear technology hates me.”

“That’s an unfair assumption,” Phil said. “I would say it’s the other way around.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you unplugged your computer and your ethernet cable, and then you took the ball out of your mouse.”

“Why would I do that?” Dan asked with a scoff. 

“You’re not slick, Howell.”

Dan stammered over gibberish words as he tried to process what Phil was saying.  _ He knew? _

“You look tired,” Dan blurted out.

It was true, Phil looked exhausted. That wasn’t what Dan had wanted to say though; he had wanted to admit that he found Phil interesting and that he wanted to get to know him better. He couldn’t admit to that without scaring Phil off though, which left him with two options: let Phil go or ask him out. Dan was opting for the latter, despite how the thought made his heart race in his chest and his mind run through all possible ways in which things could go wrong. 

“I am,” Phil said, confused at the sudden change of conversation. The change was a relief for Dan as it gave him something to focus on, something to distract him from his racing pulse and sweaty palms.

“You look like you need a coffee.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t say no to coffee,” Phil said slowly as though he was trying to pick apart Dan’s words and look for a hidden meaning in them. 

“Great,” Dan said with a wide grin. “How does this Saturday sound?”

There was a brief pause in which a myriad of emotions flashed across Phil’s face, each one of them too fleeting for Dan to decipher. For a brief moment he was worried that Phil would shake his head and turn him down, but instead he gave Dan a knowing grin.

“Saturday sounds great.” Phil said. “Oh, and Dan?”

“Yeah?” Dan asked. He was barely able to comprehend that Phil had actually agreed. 

“I could give you my number, you know? So that you don’t have to break any more company equipment to talk to me.”

Dan felt that he was grinning wide enough to split his face in two. “I think I would like that, I should probably go get the ball back for my mouse.”

“I wouldn’t risk it, I think it landed in Joan’s cubicle judging by the threats I heard when I came in.” Phil said. 

“Oh,” Dan said looking down at his useless mouse. “Hey, Phil?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I broke my mouse.”

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed!! hmu on tumblr @quiffedphil with your thoughts!! <3


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